


Eurydice

by star_sky_earth



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Characters Generally Not Being Very Nice To Each Other, Choking, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Light Bondage, Rape/Non-con Elements, Rough Sex, Very Slight Implied/Referenced Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-05-20 21:16:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19384813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/star_sky_earth/pseuds/star_sky_earth
Summary: “Bellamy?”The third time she calls for him, Bellamy turns around.





	Eurydice

**Author's Note:**

> Written in a fever dream after 4x08, with the action following directly after the events of that ep.
> 
> I have chosen not to use archive warnings for this fic, however please be advised that this is a story with some pretty heavy/dark elements. If you prefer to have some idea of how a story will end before you start, or have triggers, squicks, or pet hates that will ruin your enjoyment of a fic or upset you - **please check the end notes for a summary of this story's plot and themes.**
> 
> Be kind to yourself, take responsibility for yourself.
> 
> Anon commenting is on. Comment moderation is on.

  _why did you glance back?_  
_why did you hesitate for that moment?_  
_why did you bend your face_  
_caught with the flame of the upper earth,_  
_above my face?_

 _what was it that crossed my face_  
_with the light from yours_  
_and your glance?_  
_what was it you saw in my face?_  
_the light of your own face,_  
_the fire of your own presence?_

  

It starts raining just after they leave Sanctum.  

Just a light drizzle, nothing dramatic. Bellamy might have welcomed a thunderstorm, might have drawn some dark comfort from the sight of the sky splitting open between twin suns, the wild violence of lightning and thunder, something to echo the way he feels, flayed open and raw. Could have taken it as a sign, maybe, that the universe they occupy isn’t entirely governed by the forces of chaos and random chance, that something out there doesn’t just acknowledge his pain but empathises with it. 

 But the universe has never cared before, and it’s not going to start now. The rain is just heavy enough to be irritating, a light mist in the air that slowly seeps through his clothing until it’s saturated and clinging, chafing the wound in his leg, each step an effort on slippery, uneven ground. Cold moisture settles over Bellamy’s skin like sweat, so that he has to stop every few minutes and wipe off his brow, looking around at this strange alien forest, even more foreign for how familiar it is, every plant and animal just different enough to be disconcerting. Like a dream, where everything makes sense until it doesn’t. 

“Lost?” Josephine taunts, from somewhere over his shoulder. “I’m sure that my father would be happy to give you directions. Just wait around here a bit longer. He can’t be far behind.”

Bellamy rolls his eyes, not even bothering to turn around. “Shut up.”

He sets off again, giving her no choice but to follow, the rope attached to her wrist cuffs looped twice around his arm and held in his clenched fist. She stumbles as she’s yanked along, swearing loudly, but he doesn’t look back to check if she’s hurt herself, just sets his jaw grimly and trudges through the thick undergrowth. 

“So much for being a gentleman!” she shouts at his back. “I hope you treat your girlfriend better than this. That was your girlfriend, right? Back there at the barrier? That girl that was definitely _not_ Clarke?” 

Not hurt, then. 

Josephine walks deliberately slowly behind him, dragging at the end of the rope so that Bellamy has to keep tugging her along, fighting for each step, every inch of progress. The only good thing about the rain is that it’s stopped her lying down on the ground and forcing him to pull her along, but it’s still a miserable way to travel, and they’re making excruciatingly slow progress. In an ideal world, he’d simply heft her over his shoulder and carry her, but that’s not an option with the barely healed wound in his thigh. And Sanctum is definitely not an ideal world.

_Sorry, Monty._

-

Bellamy’s never met anyone that talks as much as Josephine. She won’t stop, constantly whining and complaining, drawing from a seemingly infinite well of insults and cruelly aimed barbs that she fires at Bellamy almost without pause. The fact that Bellamy ignores every word, or at best tells her to shut up, doesn’t seem to dissuade her at all. Maybe she prefers it - she certainly seems to like the sound of her own voice. 

He’d briefly considered gagging her, reasoning that it might be worth the effort just to win her silence, some relief for his ringing ears and pounding headache, but something in Bellamy baulks at the idea of getting that close to her, taking that extra degree of roughness with Clarke’s vulnerable body. Dragging Josephine out of Sanctum had been bad enough, fighting not just her but his own hardwired impulse to protect Clarke, forcing himself to manhandle the body that he’d tried so hard to keep safe for so long. Trying to gag her would be even worse - he can’t rely on Josephine to make anything easy for him, her self-preservation instincts warped by her belief in her own immortality, and he doesn’t like the idea of having to force a gag between Clarke’s teeth, the possibility of causing real harm. 

Bellamy can’t bear the thought of finally getting to touch that delicate, perfect mouth, only to bruise it.

In the absence ofa gag, there’s no choice but to let Josephine talk. He tries to block it out at first, tries to let the endless stream of words just wash over him like so much meaningless noise, but he finds that can’t help but listen, sickly fascinated despite himself. He’s never heard anything like it before, the seamless and unpredictable way that Josephine transitions between different personalities, conflicting identities, her tone conciliatory one moment, aggressive the next. She switches faces so effortlessly, so easily that Bellamy doubts that there’s anything left underneath anymore, thinks that maybe a hundred years of switching bodies has eroded any fixed sense of self that she might have once had, leaving behind a personality that constantly shifts and moves like smoke, adapting to fit any situation, fill any container. Even Becca had a core objective, set rules and parameters, her mindless drones ultimately bound by something approaching a moral code. Josephine is an entirely different animal, far more erratic and dangerous.

Sometimes she’s amicable, almost kind, talking to him like they’re old friends, like she has only his best interests at heart. She coyly flatters him, layering subtle compliments with sincerely professed concerns for his wellbeing, appealing to his sense of humanity, his love for his people, his desire to be a better man. Josephine’s reading of him is so skin-crawlingly accurate that Bellamy wonders if she has access to Clarke’s memories as well as everything else, or if he’s just that transparent and obvious, that easily played. He almost feels sorry for her, to be stuck with such a predictable opponent. 

_“What about Madi? Doesn’t she deserve a father? A good life? School, friends, all the things that your sister never had? This is your chance, Bellamy. Her chance, to start over, to get to be a kid again. You can give that to her.”_

Bellamy can tell that the compassionate act is difficult for Josephine. Pretending to understand, pretending to know what it’s like to care about someone other than yourself. Of all her masks, this is the one that slips most often, Josephine stumbling over her words as she tries to remember how to appeal to him as a person, just one human to another. Like an anthropologist, struggling to decipher a primitive culture. Or a zoologist, diligently recording the strange behaviours of animals in the wild, no real understanding of the reasons behind them. 

She’s much more convincing when she tries to negotiate with him, laying out all the cold, hard facts as she sees them, all the reasons why he has no hope of bringing Clarke back.

“ _How many hours have you wasted, now? How many hours have we spent, walking around in circles in the rain, round and round in this forest? Do you even know where we are? Or where we’re going? Make the smart choice, Bellamy. Make the choice that Clarke would have wanted you to make.”_

There’s sense in what she’s saying, Bellamy grudgingly admits. He has only a rough idea of where they’re going, a crumpled map in his pocket and a basic grasp of how to navigate in this strange, twin-sun world. There’s no guarantee that they’ll find Gabriel in time or at all, no way of knowing if the old man will be willing or even able to help them. He has no choice to trust the map that Russell gave them, but that doesn’t mean that it’s right.It would have been a smart move to give them a doctored map, to steer them all off the edge of a cliff in the middle of nowhere, a neat solution to an increasingly messy problem. 

But what Josephine doesn’t understand - _can’t_ understand, all of her emotions long since dead or atrophied - is that Bellamy is past operating on sense or logic. He’s not navigating by Russell’s map, doesn’t need to look to the twin suns hanging low in the violet sky above them for directions. Bellamy’s internal compass remains stubbornly fixed to one point, as it always has been – Clarke.

Bellamy doesn’t need any faith in himself, not when he has Clarke to believe in. 

The only guide that he’s needs is the voice inside him, the voice that reminds him that every time he’s thought that she was lost, every time he’s faithlessly given up on her, she’s eventually found her way back to them somehow. Found her way back to him. 

Clarke will find a way to survive. His beautiful, relentless, miraculous girl. She always does. 

The most disturbing of Josephine’s myriad personalities takes a while to show its face. It emerges gradually, and only a little at first – tiny glimpses of the monster living under the skin of the woman he loves, just a stirring in the shadows, caught only out of the corner of his eye. She’s nothing if not terrifyingly patient, the mark of a life measured in centuries rather than years, in it for the long haul. But even she has limits to her endurance, and eventually, frustrated by Bellamy’s complete lack of response, the sight of his steadfastly turned back, she snaps. 

In intricate, almost loving detail, her voice lowered to a girlish sing-song that sends goosebumps prickling over his skin, Josephine describes exactly what torture lies in wait for Bellamy the moment that her father catches him. The very same torture that even now, she reminds him, the Sanctum guards are probably inflicting on his friends. All the pain that’s being meted out in his name on the people that he claims to love but left behind without a second thought, the briefest of glances back. 

_“Even that pretty girlfriend of yours._ Especially _her.”_

Josephine’s voice is light and breezy, almost dreamy as she tells him all about the advanced technology of Sanctum, all the methods that they have to keep people alive through almost _anything_ , even without the benefits of a mind drive.

Bellamy longs for his gun, for the cold comfort of metal in his hands, some sense of control over a world gone mad. Something solid to distract him from the constant rain, the endless sea of trees, the gaping hole in his chest. But there’s nothing in his hands but Josephine’s rope.

_“Is that how you look after the people that you love, Bellamy?”_

He wishes that he could say that it’s Echo’s face that flashes into his mind at that moment. That he sees long brunette hair instead of frizzy blonde waves, brown eyes rather than blue, razor sharp cheekbones instead of a soft, heart-shaped face. It would be easier if he could at least cling to the pretense of morality. Easier than facing the brutal truth, that he has no room left inside him for honour, for loyalty, for bravery – no room for anything that isn’t Clarke. That he has no use for any of the idealistic notions that he once thought defined him, not until he knows for certain that the last time he saw her wasn’t _the last time._

What kind of man is he, that his humanity rests on such precarious ground? That his girlfriend, the woman who loves him with her whole heart, gives herself up to save him and he can’t even bring himself to recall her face?

The first time that he lost Clarke, it had taken six years for Bellamy to reconstruct himself. A man and a morality build out of scraps and leftovers, only held together by the faded memory of Clarke’s hand on his chest, the delicate touch of her fingers to his temple, her belief that he could be a better man. This time, Bellamy fears that there will be so such recovery. That finding Clarke, and losing her again, has broken him for good, some fundamental part of himself, deep inside, shattered beyond hope of repair.

_“Is that how you would have looked after Clarke?”_

-

It’s dark, both suns already disappeared below the horizon, when Bellamy allows himself to stop for the night. 

Josephine seems to have worn herself out, her voice growing steadily quieter and quieter over the past couple of hours, blessedly silent for the last grueling mile. It should have made things easier, but something tears painfully at Bellamy’s heart as she wearily allows him to tie her cuffs to a tree with rope, wordlessly looking up at him with reproach, accusing eyes large in her wan face. Like this, her face no longer twisted with contempt, hateful tongue finally still, she almost looks like Clarke, and it’s difficult to keep the truth straight in his mind. 

She’s got enough slack in the rope to sit but not enough to lie down, guaranteeing her an uncomfortable night. For a second, Bellamy thinks about trying to make her more comfortable, offering her his jacket, trying to find a way to let her rest properly. Nothing much, just a hint of the kindness he would have offered Clarke. 

Bellamy hesitates, hand hovering over Josephine’s restraints, but then she shifts, silver moonlight rippling over her skin, and he remembers. Another night, another tree on another world, him and Clarke leaning against rough bark, her soft eyes on his bruised and battered face, his even more bruised and battered soul.

_“You want forgiveness? I’ll give it to you. You’re forgiven, okay?”_

Bellamy turns away from Josephine, his stomach turning. Josephine isn’t Clarke. She isn’t even a person. Josephine is a disease, a corruption, not satisfied with eating away at the body of the woman he loves, defiling his memories of Clarke as well, everything he holds secret and sacred forever tainted by her foul touch. 

That night, the borrowed grace that Clarke had conferred upon him with her quiet profession of faith, her gentle hand on his shoulder, turned to ash and cinders, ruined forever by the sight of Josephine’s cold, empty eyes. 

-

“Bellamy?”

He ignores it, the first time. He’s crouched over, his back to Josephine, seeing to the sputtering fire. It had been a challenge to get the damp wood to take a flame, and it requires constant tending, always on the verge of going out.

It had taken a while for Josephine to fall asleep. She’d fought it valiantly for as long as she could, forcing herself awake with a jolt every time that her head started to droop, struggling to keep her eyelids from fluttering closed. Probably trying to wait him out, hoping that he would fall asleep first, that she could find a way to get free once he was out for the count.

As if there’s any hope of rest for him tonight. 

Josephine may be functionally immortal, but she’s not quite a god. Not yet. Eventually she’d had no choice but to fall asleep, leaving Bellamy alone in the cool, dark silence of the trees, nothing but the fire and his own thoughts for company. 

But now she’s awake again, apparently. Bellamy sighs to himself, hoping that the sound doesn’t carry across the clearing, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of his reaction. 

“Bellamy?”

The second time, he hears it.

Truly, Josephine is nothing like Clarke. Looking back, Bellamy can’t believe that he was ever taken in by her clumsy playacting, that he’d ever been stupid enough to look at her and see the woman he loved looking back. It’s not just the incessant hair twirling. Josephine carries herself entirely differently from Clarke – light and easy on her feet as if unburdened by both guilt and memory, a creature outside of time, free from any of the forms of bondage that keep people tethered to this world. Her face is smooth and untroubled, no trace of the furrows in her brow that Clarke gets when she’s thinking, the tiny wrinkles that make Bellamy’s thumb itch with the urge to reach over and smooth them out. And her voice is much higher pitched, childlike and grating, pretentiously affected like the princess that he’d always accused Clarke of being. 

That’s not the voice that Bellamy hears now, calling him through the darkness. 

The voice that he hears now is low and husky. Heart-stoppingly familiar, the voice that used to issue him orders during the day and follow him into his dreams at night, waking up more than once to an achingly hard cock and soft honey-velvet tones echoing through his mind, filthy whispers that he replayed over and over in his head until he came. 

Clarke’s voice. 

_Don’t do it_ , he says to himself, already knowing in his gut that he’s fighting a losing battle. _It’s a trap. Don’t let yourself be taken in by her again._

“Bellamy?”

The third time, Bellamy turns around. 

He could no more stop himself than he could stop his own heart from beating. It’s instinct, a purely physical reaction, the inhale that inevitably follows the exhale. There’s no blade in the world sharp enough to cut out the part of him that answers when Clarke calls out for him. 

_The good little knight, by his queen’s side._

Through the darkness, the flickering shadows cast by the dying fire, Bellamy sees her. Sees her eyes, wide and alarmed, darting around the clearing; hair whipping wildly across her face as she twists around frantically, taking in her surroundings. Her mouth, parted slightly in shock. Her brow, furrowed in confusion as if she has no idea where she is, what’s going on. 

Not Josephine. 

_Her._

“Clarke?” Bellamy doesn’t so much say her name as breathe it, _feel it_ , every inch of his body coming back to life at once, an ache in his chest as though his heart, stopped at the moment of her death, is beating again, lurching back to life. “How…?”

“Bellamy?” Clarke’s eyes lock to his from across the clearing, and even from here he can see that she’s breathing heavily, chest heaving as if waking from a nightmare, her face damp with sweat. “What’s going - ”

Her voice trails off as she looks down at her wrists, apparently just registering the fact that she’s tied up, brow wrinkling even further as she gives the rope an experimental tug, either not understanding or not believing what she’s seeing. 

Bellamy opens his mouth, not sure what he’s going to say, only meaning to reassure her, but before he can get out a single word Clarke starts to panic, struggling against her restraints, feet scrabbling uselessly in the dirt as she tries to get leverage, helplessly trying to get free. She lets out a sob as she pushes against one of her cuffs, trying to force it off over her hand, crying out in pain. 

“Bellamy, please – please, what’s happening? What’s going on?” Clarke begs pathetically, the fear rising in her voice with every word, hands shaking as she claws at the cuffs. “Bell, help me, please - ”

Bellamy almost skids into the fire in his rush to get to her, his legs stiff and useless from so long kneeling on the hard ground, his movements jerky with adrenaline and pain from his wound. 

There are tears streaming down Clarke’s face by the time he falls to the ground by her side, her voice hysterical with fear, too far gone for reason, limbs flailing wildly as she desperately tries to free herself. Bellamy tries to undo the rope attaching her cuffs to the tree, twisting to avoid Clarke’s legs as she blindly kicks out at him, but the knots are too difficult to work in the dark, pulled tight by Josephine’s attempts at escape, by Clarke’s panic. Impatient, he draws his knife and cuts through the rope instead. 

The rope barely hits the ground before Bellamy’s reaching for Clarke, drawing her firmly into his chest, arms wrapping around her body in an attempt to still her violent movements. 

At first she tries to fight him off, twisting and bucking in his solid grip, hands scrabbling and slapping against his chest, still cuffed together. Bellamy grits his teeth as he holds on to her, scared of hurting her, even more scared that she’ll hurt herself if he lets her go.

“Shh,” he says helplessly, trying to raise his voice over the sound of her frantic sobbing, her cries of frustration. “You’re okay. It’s okay, Clarke. I’m here. I’m here.”

He repeats the same nonsense phrases over and over in an attempt to soothe, not really hearing what he’s saying, just hanging on as she struggles against him.

“It’s alright, Clarke. You’re okay now. You’re safe,” Bellamy promises, hoping with everything in him that it’s true. 

It seems like forever before Clarke’s movements start to slow, gradually losing strength until she’s doing little more than feebly pushing at his chest, so weak that Bellamy can barely feel it through his jacket. She lets out a heartrending sob as she collapses against him, her entire body slumping, like a broken bird in his arms.

Bellamy closes his eyes as he holds her close to him, her wet face tucked into his neck, her whole body trembling from stress and exertion. He can feel her heart hammering in her chest, echoed by the frantic beat of his own pulse, one heart in two bodies. 

_How is she back?_

He can’t think, his entire world narrowed down to the weight of Clarke in his arms; the rasping, beautiful sound of her breath; her open mouth against his throat.

“Shh,” Bellamy says again, pointlessly. He reaches up to bury one hand in her tangled hair, silk against his calloused skin, pulling her closer into his body. Clarke’s still crying but it’s quieter now, a silent flood of tears that soaks through his collar, his own skin left damp with her tears. “I’ve got you.”

Clarke stirs, face lifting from his neck as she starts to pull away. Shamefully, Bellamy considers not letting her go, muscles tensing as he fights a split-second war within himself, protectiveness almost overwhelming reason. It’s only reluctantly that he relaxes his arms, releasing her. 

He’s relieved when she doesn’t go far, only drawing back enough to look up into his face, but he still has to resist the urge to pull her back, the cold air making him shiver where it hits her tear tracks on his neck. Her hands are still buried in the fabric of his jacket, only now she’s clutching onto him, not pushing him away. 

Clarke’s eyes are red-rimmed and swollen when they meet his, tears still caught in the blonde lashes. Her hair is a tangled mess, her skin blotchy in patches from crying. She’s never looked so beautiful.

“You saved me,” she says. Her voice is a raspier than usual, thick with tears, shaky at first but strengthening quickly as she starts to recover. “You got me back, Bellamy.”

Bellamy demurs, shaking his head. “I didn’t do anything. I didn’t get a chance to.”

“You did,” Clarke insists, nodding, as gloriously stubborn as ever. “You got Josephine away from Sanctum, away from her sleeping pills, the sedatives she used to shut me out. If you hadn’t done that…”

“Clarke,” he says, gently interrupting her. “That was all you. You saved yourself, just like you always do. You’re amazing, you know that? I can’t believe how strong you are.”

Clarke grins, shaking her head. “I couldn’t have done it without you.” Bellamy opens his mouth to protest, but she reaches up to touch a finger to his lips, stunning him quiet. “No. Stop.”

Bellamy doesn’t dare say another word, scared that she’ll pull her hand away if he does. Already he can feel himself starting to heal, the ragged remnants of his soul knitting back together, all the filthy parts of him washing clean, made new by her touch. 

Slowly, tentatively, he leans forward until his forehead is resting against hers, amazed when she doesn’t pull away, when she lets him just stay there against her, closing his eyes just to feel it, remembering what it’s like to be in a world with Clarke in it. 

“And now I’m home,” Clarke whispers, her hands coming up to rest against his face, fingers lightly tracing along his jaw. 

“And now you’re home,” Bellamy whispers back, heart so full that he worries it might shatter open.

“Bell?” Clarke asks, after a little while.

“Hmm?”

“Um, my hands? The cuffs?” Her words are teasing, but they cut through Bellamy like a knife, the events of the past few days rushing back like a shock of cold water, the peaceful moment ruined.

_Fuck._

“Fuck.” Bellamy pulls back so quickly that Clarke almost topples over, and he has to put his hand out to steady her, one large palm wrapping securely around her elbow as he tries to work his other hand into his front pocket. “I’ve got the key, just let me - ”

His jeans are soaked through, sticking to his equally wet skin, and the key to her cuffs is tiny, slipping through his fingers as he swears, frustrated. Clarke giggles, an infectiously joyful noise, relief bubbling through the sound, and Bellamy can’t help but smile too, despite everything. 

Eventually he manages to get a firm grip on the key, drawing it triumphantly out of his pocket, holding it up in between them with a grin. Clarke holds up her hands for him to carefully unlock the cuffs, sighing with relief as the heavy restraints fall away from her wrists, landing with a muffled clunk in the dirt. 

“Let me see,” Bellamy says, reaching out to take her hands in his, squinting to see in the dim light. The skin around her wrists is abraded and sore, and she hisses when he runs his fingers over the red marks, checking for any dislocation or real injury. His stomach drops as he looks at them, evidence of the force that he used on her, his violence written into her flawless skin.

“It’s not your fault,” Clarke reassures him, reading his mind as always. “You did what you had to do.”

“I always hurt you,” Bellamy says quietly, his head lowered over her hands, too scared, too pathetic to look her in the eye. “All I want to do is keep you safe, and all I ever do is hurt you more.”

“That’s not true.” Clarke gives his hands a reassuring squeeze before letting go, using one finger under his chin to tip his face, forcing him to face her. “You’re a good man, Bellamy.”

Bellamy wants to believe it. Wants to believe Clarke, wants to share the conviction that he sees in her earnest, hopeful eyes. 

“When I died,” Clarke begins, and then stops, an involuntary sound of distress escaping from Bellamy’s throat. “When I died,” she repeats, gently, shifting closer to him, her hands sliding down to rest on his shoulders. “I was so scared, Bellamy.“

“I would have been there,” he blurts out, pushed almost past endurance at the thought of it, Clarke laid out and frightened on a medical table, all alone, no one there to comfort her. “If I could have been, I would have stopped it.”

“I know.” Clarke smiles, her hands tightening on his shoulders, eternally selfless, comforting him through the story of her own death. “I know you would have been. And I was thinking about you, Bellamy. All I could think about that I would never get to see you again – all I could think about was that I would never get to do this.”

Her mouth is soft on his when she kisses him. Softer than he ever could have dreamed – softer than he ever _has_ dreamed, countless times over the last six years, the last century. Bellamy can’t move, at once both desperate to touch her and terrified to, sure that if he moves he’ll ruin it, shock her back to her senses, remind her just how far he is beneath her, just how little he deserves this. 

He’s still frozen when she ends the kiss, pulling back to look at him with nervous, shifting eyes.

“Don’t you want me?” she asks, voice uncertain. “I’m sorry, I just thought - ”

Clarke doesn’t get to finish the thought, her words cut short by Bellamy’s returning kiss, his arms wrapping around her waist with such force that he almost lifts her off the ground, crushing her against his chest. She loops her arms around his neck and draws him into her in turn, opening her mouth to him easily when he coaxes her lips open with his tongue. She tastes like sugar, melting so sweetly into his kiss that he wishes he could devour her, the taste of her absolution like honey in his mouth. 

-

They don’t bother with getting naked. It’s too cold, the fire burnt down to embers, and suddenly, all at once there’s no time left to waste, a single extra second too long after over a hundred years of waiting. Bellamy has just enough presence of mind to take off his jacket, spreading it over the damp earth for Clarke to lie on, already reaching for his zipper as he watches her settle onto her back. He pulls down his jeans and his underwear just enough to free his cock, jacking himself once with a lazy fist, Clarke’s eyes wide as she takes in his size.

She gets over her surprise quickly, a coy smile on her lips as she reaches out to replace his hand with her own, her slender fingers teasing along his shaft until he has to grab her hand to stop her, worried that he’ll come before he even gets inside her. Clarke giggles, teasing him with one raised eyebrow before he leans over and kisses her quiet, her laughter turning to a sigh against his mouth.

Her boots are easy to remove, even with two sets of shaking, nervous fingers, but her trousers are more of a challenge, tight leather sticking to her skin so that it’s a struggle to get them over her slim hips. Bellamy has to sit back on his heels to yank them off, one of her feet braced against his shoulder, throwing them over his shoulder with a growl of victory, not caring where they land. He takes her foot in his hand, dropping ticklish kisses on the sensitive arch, Clarke laughing again through what remains of her tears, moonlight glinting off the tear tracks that are still drying on her cheeks.

It’s so easy to forget that underneath it all, she’s just a girl that needs him to love her.

Almost as much as he needs to love her.

Clarke’s skin is shockingly pale in the pitch black night, almost otherworldly, a thing of beauty out of place in this cruel, ugly world. Bellamy wants to explore every inch of her slender legs, learn the curves and lines of her body with his hand and his lips, get his mouth on her cunt, but he only has a second to take her in before she’s pulling him down on top of her, eager hands already on his cock, guiding him inside her. 

Greedy and overeager, not quite prepared for how thick he is, Clarke winces as she adjusts to the stretch of his cock inside her. Bellamy tells himself to slow down, take it easy on her, but he can’t stop himself from pushing forward, sinking all the way in, eyes closing from the pleasure of it. She’s dripping wet, warm and tight around him, so good that he never wants to leave, doesn’t even want to pull out the fraction of an inch it would take to thrust back into her. Her legs come up to wrap around his hips, ankles locking at the small of his back as if she feels the same way, keeping him snug inside her where he belongs.

He could stay like this forever, undone just by being inside her, but it’s not long until she starts to mill her hips against him, impatiently urging him to move.

“Shh,” Bellamy whispers against her cheek, nuzzling across to her mouth where he kisses her, slow and deep, lips lingering on hers until she calms down. “Sweetheart, you feel that? You feel me inside you?”

Clarke nods, the action bumping their noses together, eyes bright when she looks at him. “I feel it.”

Here, with Clarke beneath and around him, an infinite alien sky above him, Bellamy feels his messy, painful existence take on new meaning. He’d do it all again – twice over, three times over – every broken wretched second worth it if only to have this, one perfect, shining moment of peace. 

Being inside Clarke feels like forgiveness, he thinks. A message from the universe, from whatever power gets to decide, that he’s done enough, earned his salvation. Maybe he is a good man, if he gets to have this, even once.

Carefully he cradles her head in his arms, mindful not to jostle her head against the hard ground when he starts to move, pulling out and pushing back in one smooth thrust, so easy and slick that they both groan, Bellamy feeling like he’s half a second away from coming already, his whole body on fire for her, each one of his nerve endings sparking electric across his skin. 

“Bell.” Clarke’s eyes are wet again, her arms tight around his neck, keeping him close, their mouths barely an inch apart. “Bell, I love you.”

She breaks off into a needy moan, overwhelmed, and Bellamy kisses her, hot and fierce, his hips already speeding up despite all his efforts to take it slow, unable to resist the slippery wet glide of her cunt, the clinging heat of her. 

“I know,” he says. “I know, Clarke. I love you too. I’m never letting go of you again, I swear.”

He goes on, unable to stop himself from babbling out words that only make half sense, a constant refrain of _mine_ and _yes_ and _forever_ that gets her moaning for every syllable, drives him crazy even as he’s saying it, both of them worked up and delirious from pleasure, the ecstatic relief of _finally_ rushing through their veins. 

Bellamy can’t keep his hands still, feverishly running his hands over every part of Clarke that he can reach, kissing every inch of exposed skin from her face to her neck, tugging down the neckline of her thick cotton t-shirt until it threatens to rip, just so that he can mouth along the line of her collarbone, the top of her breasts. Next time he’ll get her naked under him, get his hands on those glorious tits, but this time it’s enough to have her alive and close, to hear the way that her breath hitches when he grinds his hips against her clit, every time he hits her in that good place deep inside.

It’s an intoxicating spell that they cast over each other, broken only when Bellamy runs his hands along her arms, pulling them up above her head, and Clarke moans in pain, the sound of her distress a jarring note amongst so much pleasure. Startled, Bellamy freezes, realising too late that he’d forgotten about the abrasions on her wrists, the thin skin already blossoming dark with bruises.

He releases her instantly.

“I’m sorry,” he apologises, pressing the words to her lips in between frenzied kisses, overcome with guilt, hating himself for hurting her _again_ , so soon after he’d promised to keep her safe. “Clarke, I’m so sorry.”

She shushes him, her hands gentle as she strokes over his back, the nape of his neck, stilling his anxious movements.

“I don’t mind.” Clarke’s eyes are clear as she looks up at him, her voice steady. “I want you to do it. You said I was yours – I want you to show me Bellamy. Show me that I belong to you. Show me that you’ll never let go of me again.”

Disbelieving, not quite sure what he’s hearing, Bellamy doesn’t move at first. It’s only when she moves her hands up into his hair, tugging hard at the same time as she rocks her hips into his, that he begins to slowly thrust into her again. He’s clumsy at first, his rhythm lost, trying to feel out how far she wants him to go, what exactly she’s asking for, but her mouth is sweet and addictive, her cunt even more so, and it’s so easy to lose himself in her again, not to think about anything except how good it feels to be fucking her, giving himself over to pure instinct, blindly following wherever she leads. 

Her legs are tight around him, pulling him into her, encouraging him out, her desperate cries getting louder the harder, the faster he fucks her. She’s soft and pliant under him, taking everything he gives her and keening for more, her nails clipped short but still painful when she digs them into his sides, her hands sneaking up under his shirt. 

Clarke stretches out under him, bringing her arms back over her head, one wrist laid over the other, arching her back wantonly so that her breasts press against her chest, hard nipples evident even through two layers of fabric. She’s a fantasy come to life, a maiden from Greek myth, laid out on the dark earth like a sacrifice draped over an altar - almost virginal, if not for the way that she rolls her hips expertly underneath him. 

He thinks that his heart might give out, just from the sight of her. 

“Please,” she pleads, voice high and breathy. “Hold me, Bell.”

Bellamy awkwardly shifts his weight over onto one arm, worried about crushing her, and reaches up to wrap his hand around her wrists, encircling them both with ease. The sight hits him hard, the size difference between them, her small body so simply and easily restrained, and his next thrust is much harder than the last, knocking a gasp from her throat. Still, Clarke whines, clearly unsatisfied, not settling until he tightens his grip, until he’s holding her wrists hard enough that it must hurt, no way that it doesn’t.

Clarke leads him on like that, each loving touch coaxing greater violence from him, innocent words begging for roughness, begging for _more_ , _please_ , offering her body up for him to do whatever he wants with her, until his head is spinning and he can’t think anymore, drunk on her, her surrender rushing through him like moonshine. He’d never imagined that it would be like this between them, but soon he’s fucking her harder than he’s ever fucked anyone, both of them dripping with sweat, Bellamy’s hair falling over his eyes in damp curls, his breath harsh in his dry throat.

Bellamy has always excelled at following orders. 

It’s not long before her cries start to reach a fever pitch, her cunt beginning to flutter around him as she tips her head back against the ground, body writing and bucking under him. 

“Fuck me,” she gasps out, her eyes squeezed closed, so close to coming that even _Bellamy_ can feel it, each thrust steadily drawing the tension tighter. “Fuck me, fuck me, _please_.”

“I’ve got you,” he says, slamming into her, grinding his hips against her clit until she cries out, her sharp nails dug so deep into his skin that he thinks she must be drawing blood. “Come for me, Clarke, c’mon.”

Clarke wails when she comes, her whole body shuddering as she lets out a high pitched cry, cunt clenching down so tight that it’s a struggle to fuck her through it, so tight that Bellamy has to grit his teeth to keep from coming himself.

“Fuck,” he groans. “So beautiful, Clarke, sweetheart, I love you - ”

And then she opens her eyes, cold horror washing over Bellamy as he looks down at her, adoring words catching in his throat so abruptly that he almost chokes. It takes a couple of seconds longer for his hips to stop moving, still fucking her through the end of her orgasm, pleasure only reluctantly giving way to shock. 

Josephine looks smugly up at him, pink cheeks flushed from coming, mouth curling into a self-satisfied smile. 

“Mmm,” she sighs loudly, making a show of stretching out languorously beneath him, sensuously rolling the full length of her body against his. Her eyes are an electric blue, bright even in the black night, pupils blown wide and dark. 

Lust thrums through Bellamy, involuntary and unwanted, his entire body still shaking with the need for release, arms trembling as he struggles to hold himself up. He ignores it, shock overriding every other emotion, staring down at the girl beneath him, dazed and uncomprehending.

“Thanks.” Josephine quirks a flirtatious eyebrow at him, catching her bottom lip between her sharp teeth, her mouth still swollen from his. “I really needed that.”

“No,” Bellamy stutters out, shaking his head, his gut twisting with dread. “It can’t be. You aren’t…that was Clarke.”

“Sorry, _sweetheart_ ,” she replies flippantly, shrugging one careless shoulder. “Guess you don’t know your girl as well as you think.”

Bellamy can’t move, trapped somewhere in between shock and disbelief, pinned under the crushing weight of realisation. The truth slams into him like a blow, forcing the breath from his lungs, leaving him gasping from the impact.

Everything that’s just happened - Clarke’s return; the confession of her feelings for him; making love to her for the first time - all of it, a lie. A fragile miracle, no sooner experienced than immediately profaned; the last tiny glimmer of a long-ruined hope, feeble and jealously guarded, snuffed out for Josephine’s amusement. One more _fuck you_ on behalf of a sadistic universe. 

He wasn’t making love to Clarke. He was fucking Josephine. 

He’s _still_ fucking Josephine. 

Bellamy jolts, adrenaline burning through him like acid, belatedly trying to pull away, already too late, Josephine’s legs like a vice around his hips, keeping his cock inside her.

“Uh uh uh,” she teases playfully, tightening her thigh muscles around him as he bucks uselessly against her, bony ankles sharp against the small of his back, effortlessly restraining him. She laughs a little breathlessly, clearly amused. “Are you finished already? I thought that you’d have a _bit_ more stamina than that, Bellamy. You’re quite the stud in Clarke’s fantasies.”

“Let go of me,” Bellamy threatens, voice cold. He stops fighting, knowing that it’s futile, not yet willing to use the degree of force that it would require to free himself, some small pathetic part of him still clinging to the desperate hope of Clarke’s return. “I’m warning you.”

Josephine arches an eyebrow, unconcerned.

“You first,” she counters, gesturing upwards with her chin.

Bellamy’s eyes follow the movement, tracking up her arms to see that he’s still holding her wrists in his hand.

_Let go_ , he tells himself, but he doesn’t. 

Instead he finds himself tightening his grip, watching numbly as Josephine’s skin turns white from the pressure, daring her to beg for release. He’s horrified when she lets out a gasp of arousal, her eyes glinting with mischief.

“See? I knew you weren’t done.” Josephine’s tone is gleeful as she rocks her hips upwards, and it’s only then that Bellamy realises that he’s still hard, twin waves of pleasure and shame running through his traitorous body. 

“Stop,” Bellamy says, voice breaking, bracing himself against the feeling, jaw clenching as he fights to keep his hipsstill, refusing to chase the sensation. “Stop it.”

“Wasn’t it good for you?” she asks in mock innocence, head tilting to the side as she regards him. “I’ve got to admit, I was impressed. You really do know how to treat a girl right. A bit slow at first, sure, but you got there in the end. Isn’t it amazing, what you can achieve with some encouragement?”

The entire time Josephine talks, she’s fucking herself on him, grinding on his hard cock, her venomous words interspersed with sighs and moans of satisfaction, using him like a toy. Bellamy can hardly focus on what she’s saying, too busy trying to ignore how good it feels, her cunt even wetter after coming, obscenely hot and tight. His hand flexes around her wrists, his hips aching, entire body vibrating with the urge to thrust into her. 

“I’m going to kill you,” he says, gritting his teeth.

Josephine laughs, delighted. 

“Are you? Before or after you come?”

Bellamy just about manages to shake his head in denial before it falls down to his chest, breathing heavily with the effort it takes to resist the lure of her slick cunt, the siren call of her undulating hips.

“Please. Don’t act like you didn’t enjoy it. You’ve been in love with Clarke for years, just dying to get your hands on this tight little body. You’re really going to pretend that you’ve never thought of this? Never imagined all the filthy things that you want to do to her? All the dirty things that you’re going to do to her once you get her under you?”

“No.” The word is half denial, half plea. “I would never do that, I would never - ”

“Oh Bellamy,” Josephine’s voice is pitying. “You already _have_. You just couldn’t wait to get rough with her, could you? Poor Clarke dreaming of making love to you, and all _you_ want to do is push her down and fuck her like an animal, you brute.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Bellamy lifts his chin defiantly, hoping that she can read the anger in his eyes, that even the slightest hint of the rage building in his body comes through clearly, inspiring fear in hers. “You have no idea.”

If Josephine sees his rage, feels even the smallest prickling of fear, she doesn’t show it, the rhythm of her hips never faltering. 

“You know, she’ll never let you fuck her now. Not once she finds out about this.”

“Stop.” Bellamy doesn’t know what’s worse, the steady stream of taunting words or the sweet pressure of her cunt around him, the combination of both together driving him to a place beyond human endurance, his control drawing dangerously thin. His free hand clenches into a fist against the ground, fingertips scrabbling for strength or comfort, finding nothing but cold dirt.

“What do you think that she’ll think of you then?”

“Please.” Bellamy shuts his eyes and tries to remember Clarke’s face, grasping for the memories that kept him sane through six years on the Ring, lying on his single cot with nothing but echoes and dreams to fill his empty arms. All he can see is Josephine’s dead eyes.

_“This isn’t who you are, Bellamy.”_

Bellamy lets out a broken noise as a single memory surfaces. Clarke sobbing, face wracked with pain and confusion as he looms menacingly above her; the defeated slump of her body as he berates her; her betrayed gasp as he locks a pair of cold steel handcuffs around her wrists. What excuse did he think he had, that time? How many times can he continue to fail her before she says, _no more_? Before there’s no more forgiveness, no more mercy, nothing soft or kind left in her face when she looks at him?

How long before Clarke looks at him with the same dull, uncaring eyes as the monster underneath him?

Dimly, he registers the pull on his grip as Josephine arches her back, leaning up to put her mouth to his ear, the defeated slump of his shoulders bringing his head low.

Her next words are little more than a whisper, a disturbingly intimate caress, her breath cool on his skin, lips brushing the sensitive flesh of his ear lobe.

_“You think that she can forgive you for this, too?”_

Bellamy roars as his restraint snaps, driven beyond all reason, nothing left in his mind but the need to just shut Josephine up, wipe the smug look off her face once and for all, make her feel even the smallest fragment of what he’s feeling now. He draws back and thrusts into her hard enough to bruise, his whole body thrilling with the power of it, the freedom of giving in to his most base impulse, pain and guilt for once drowned out by pleasure.

Josephine cries out, but it’s not pain - it’s triumph, victory, her face lit up with savage joy.

“I knew it,” she gasps, barely able to get out the words, the air knocked out of her lungs with each punishing thrust. She rises her hips to meet him, responding with equal force, grinning blissfully as he slams into her. “You’re all the same. You, Gabriel, Russell. This is what you all want.”

“Shut up.”

“This is what you wanted, admit it.” Josephine’s eyes are wild when they meet his, no longer empty and dark, lit up with pleasure, intense with the force of her conviction. She almost looks like Clarke, young and earnest, and Bellamy distantly registers some part of himself splintering apart, the promise of future pain on the horizon. “You’re just like me.” 

Bellamy can’t stand looking at her anymore, can’t bear the sight of Josephine looking up at him with Clarke’s eyes, the constant silent reminder of what Clarke would think of him now. He takes advantage of Josephine’s distraction - her legs only loosely wrapped around his waist, muscles lax from pleasure - and tears himself from her grip, hissing as he pulls out of her.

Josephine cries out from the loss, her mouth falling open to protest, but before she can utter a sound Bellamy flips her over onto her front, letting go of her wrists at the same time as he covers her with his body, not giving her a chance to escape. 

They both groan as he fucks back into her, Josephine’s voice edged with pain, her cunt much tighter from this angle, a whole new filthy stretch that’s the closest Bellamy will ever get to heaven. He doesn’t try to hold his weight up, no regard for her comfort, no finesse in his movements, rutting into her brutally like the animal that she accused him of being. She whines as he fucks her, her hands scrabbling across the ground, unable to meet his thrusts, unable to do anything but just lie there and submit.

Still, she can’t stay quiet.

“Doesn’t it feel good?” Josephine laughs, a mocking sound that turns into a ragged moan. “Just think, if Clarke comes back, you’ll never get this again.”

Bellamy wraps his hand around her throat and pulls up until her body arches into him, her back to his chest, his forehead pressed to the back of her head. They’re so close that he’s not even thrusting anymore, just grinding into her, panting into her neck.

“Do it,” Josephine rasps, shifting against him, using what leverage she has to push into his hand. “Go on.”

Her throat is so small under his hand, so fragile. There’s nothing immortal about the frantic beat of her pulse as it kicks against his palm, the air that rushes thorugh her windpipe each time she draws in a shuddering breath. Here, at least, Josephine is entirely and completely human. 

Bellamy squeezes.

For all her desire to live forever, Josephine doesn’t put up any kind of fight, her body relaxing back into him as he cuts off her air. She lets out a sigh as his hand clamps down, a peaceful little sound, and then, finally, blissfully, there’s nothing but silence. 

He could end this all now. Keep Clarke safe in death if not in life, sparing them both the pain of his betrayal, the knowledge of his failure. He’d never have to see the look on her face when she finds out what he’s done, his memories of her an eternal source of comfort, his to keep. Their love, forever enshrined in possibility, never exposed to corruption or decay, sacred and untouched by the reality of this world. It would be so easy.

Bellamy doesn’t know for certain that he’s going to let go until, suddenly, he does.

Josephine screams as she comes for a second time. One of her hands comes up to touch his where it still rests over her throat, fingertips ghosting over his skin, almost tender.This time Bellamy doesn’t try to hold back, letting the soft pulse of her body pull him over the edge, coming inside her with a strangled sob that feels ripped out of him. 

Bellamy collapses, all of his weight resting on her back for a split-second before he pulls out, rolling to the side and onto his back, far enough away that no part of him is touching her. 

Beside him Josephine coughs and splutters, slowly pulling herself up onto her elbows, her movements unsteady. Bellamy ignores her, choosing instead to stare up into the starless sky, watching the white blume of his breath as it blossoms in the cold air. He doesn’t want to see the wreck that he’s made of her, the mess of his come dripping down her thighs and shining white in the moonlight, stark on the dark ground. 

He’s startled when he feels a hand tugging on the sleeve of his jacket, the weight of a body pressing up against his side. Josephine nudges at his arm until he lifts it, too exhausted and drained to resist. He watches, stunned, as she slips under his upstretched arm to rest her head against his chest.

From this angle all he can see is the top of her blonde head. She could be anyone. She could even be Clarke.

He puts his arm around her, and feels nothing.

-

It’s freezing cold when Bellamy wakes up, alone on the hard ground. 

At some point during the night he’d leaned over, ignoring Josephine’s indignant protests at being woken up, and dragged his jacket over them both, even that meagre cover better than nothing. But now she’s gone, taking his jacket with her, leaving him behind to shiver himself awake in the grey morning.

She’ll be halfway to Sanctum by now, no doubt. He should probably be grateful that she didn’t kill him before she left, even if it was probably logic, rather than compassion, that stayed her hand, an objective assessment that he didn’t pose enough of a threat to justify the risk. 

Bellamy doesn’t feel particularly grateful. He doesn’t feel much of anything, except for the cold and the pain in his thigh, the sharp edge of a rock somewhere underneath his hip. He waits for the emotions to catch up to him - the overwhelming wave of regret; the shame; the old familiar self-hatred, like a bullet wound in his gut. But nothing comes. 

Just as he wonders what he's going to do now, a familiar voice pipes up.

“Are you just going to lie there all morning? I’m cold.”

It's something of a relief to know that he can still feel something, even if it's just surprise.

When Bellamy looks towards the source of the noise, Josephine is fully dressed and wearing his jacket over her own, poking the remnants of last night’s fire with her boot, an expression of vague disgust curling her lip.

“Why are you still here?” he asks, voice flat. “Why haven’t you left? Wasn’t that your plan - to trick me into untying you, then escape?”

Josephine smiles as she looks over at him. The bruises around her neck are a livid purple in the thin dawn light, standing out vividly enough that Bellamy can see them from across the clearing. 

“Oh Bellamy,” she says, her voice slow and indulgent, as if she’s talking to a child, or a pet. “Why would I leave now? You’ve just gotten interesting.”

 

_all, all the flowers are lost;_

_everything is lost,_  
_everything is crossed with black,_  
_black upon black_  
_and worse than black,_  
_this colourless light._

** Eurydice, H.D. **

**Author's Note:**

> Summary: Bellamy is alone in the forest with Josephine after the events of episode 4x08. After ignoring all her attempts at interaction, he finally gives in when he believes that Clarke has broken free of J’s hold/thrown her out of her mind. B and C emotionally confess their feelings for one another and begin to make love. C encourages B to be progressively rougher with her despite his misgivings. She asks B to hold her wrists down, which he does. After she comes he realises that she has been J all along, and tries to pull out, but she fucks herself on him. J taunts him until his control snaps and he fucks her even rougher than before, still pinning her wrists to the ground with one hand. She enjoys it. There is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it implication that J has fucked Russell, her father. B turns J onto her front as he doesn't want to see her face. He chokes J, with her encouragement, and briefly considers killing her, reasoning that it would be kinder for both of them if C never comes back or finds out what he has done. When he lets go, J orgasms again. Afterwards, J decides to stay rather than escape, stating that B has 'finally gotten interesting'. B’s ending motivations and feelings towards J are left unclear. The only character who gives meaningful consent in this fic is Josephine - this is heavy dub con/non con for both Clarke and Bellamy.
> 
> The poem 'Eurydice' by H.D. can be read in full here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51869/eurydice-56d22fe6d049d
> 
> Come talk to me on tumblr - star-sky-earth.tumblr.com


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